Birding and other distractions

After leaving home at 5:30 I arrived in the Spurn area some five hours later after an uneventful journey. The birding day started at Sammy's Point, the coastal site west of Easington. The weather was quite pleasant, calm and dry. Walking along the riverbank the reported Pied Wheatear was soon located on rocks along the foreshore. A female type it was fairly active often flying down to the beach.  A little further on, in a paddock with scattered hawthorn bushes were several stonechats, one of which was an Amur (Stejneger's) Stonechat. The taxonomy of eastern stonechats is fairly complex though recent changes generally recognise Amur as a separate species from the closely related Siberian Stonechat. The bird was a female, pale in overall colouration, with peachy underparts, a buff throat and rufous-orange rump. Nearby a richly coloured male Common Stonechat gave close views on the fenceline. Whilst at Sammy's I heard that a Desert Wheatear had been found near the gas terminal...

My only previous UK encounter with Nutcracker was a bird in Suffolk in 1985 so the influx of the species in Western Europe this autumn gave hope that one would make it to these shores. Sure enough a bird was found at Mundesley in Norfolk at the weekend, and was widely twitched on the Sunday (25th). I drove up today, together with Keith, arriving in Mundesley on a pleasantly sunny morning. The Nutcracker had been seen earlier though not for half an hour at that point, and birders had spread out to look for it. After about an hour it was reported in Gold Park where it was seen on the rooftops of nearby houses. As is typical of the species it was fairly confiding though was not seen on the ground by us. We then drove to Cley where a Desert Wheatear had been reported near the beach car park  in recent days. After a short walk along the shingle the bird was seen, an attractive first winter male. At one point it came very close, posing on a fence line and on the beach. After that a brief...

Fairly mild and mostly sunny at Dungeness we started at Southview Cottage where a Yellow-browed Warbler had been reported in the garden. The bird was seen a couple of times though proved fairly elusive and didn't call. A Brambling was heard whilst waiting there. From the Hanson Hide there were plenty of waterfowl to be seen, Gadwall being most notable. A couple of female-type Goldeneye were quite close to the hide.  A Clouded Yellow was the only butterfly seen at Dungeness; what a year for the species it's been. Otherwise Dungeness seemed fairly quiet so we headed to Rye Harbour to visit the nature reserve there. It has been many years since I last came here, and in the meantime the impressive new visitor centre has been built. The Gooders Hide is a short walk away, named after one of my birding heroes, John Gooders. He is justifiably famous for writing 'Where to Watch Birds' in 1967, a book that proved a real game changer for me and no doubt thousands of others. The fi...

Another fine sunny day. The first call was to the Observatory, mainly checking out the moat and nearby area.  It was generally quiet for birds with a Wheatear and several Stonechat being seen. In the Observatory garden we were shown several stick-insects, quite large specimens up to 10 cm in length. They were Mediterranean Stick Insects, a non-native species but with a few isolated colonies as in this case. Both green and brown forms were present. A seawatch by the fishing boats yielded a fair nu mber of Sandwich Terns feeding close inshore. Several Common Scoter were seen, albeit fairly distant, but there was little else of note. At the RSPB reserve the Pectoral Sandpiper that has been present for nearly a week was seen from Dennis's hide in the company of a Ruff. Near Boulderwall Farm at least 10 Cattle Egrets were feeding amongst sheep on the marsh, giving close views. The final visit was to Jury's Gap where the reported adult American Golden Plover was eventually found amon...